Healing From Eczema
If you have eczema, you already know how much it can affect your everyday life.
And bottom line, you can only relieve and heal your eczema once you identify and address your personal triggers. (to understand more about what causes eczema, click here). We need to find out which ones are yours to create a protocol specifically for you. Everything listed below is usually included in the comprehensive protocol I’ve designed for my clients.
- Eat a non-inflammatory diet: This is non-negotiable when it comes to skin and gut health. And what does that mean? It means eliminating the foods that have the ability to cause inflammation in a large number of the population. These include gluten, dairy, soy, excess sugar and processed foods in general. It means eating clean and organic at least 80% of the time on a maintenance program and 95-100% of the time during an initial 30-60 day protocol.
- Heal the gut: Beautiful skin begins in the gut. Remember that 80% of the immune system is housed in the gut and eczema is thought to have an autoimmune component. There can often be what we call a dysbiosis or gut bacterial imbalance which can usually be corrected with the proper probiotics and foods. Sometimes there’s some added yeast and parasites that also need to be clean up. We can easily determine what’s going on under the hood with a functional comprehensive stool test.
- Probiotic for your skin: Now that you understand the necessity of maintaining a good gut bacterial climate let’s take a leap to the idea that our skin has its own biodiversity and bacterial mix as well. Since eczema is thought to be caused, at least partially, by a bacteria it would only make sense that a probiotic applied topically might help and it DOES! Not all probiotics are created equal though and for treating eczema, I’ve had great success with the brand, Megaspore Biotic. I have my clients take it internally as well as apply it externally to the skin. This brand is available only through a healthcare professional. You can order it at my online dispensary by going here.
- Reduce stress: Stress of any kind will aggravate the immune system and inflammatory response. This includes work stress, relationship stress, food stress, and no-sleep stress (not getting enough sleep is probably the biggest stress driver there is). If you need help with sleep, contact me or another healthcare professional. It’s that important!
- Vitamin D: Make sure you have adequate levels of Vitamin D. I like to see a blood level of at least 50ng/ml. If your doctor says you’re okay at 30 (which is within lab ranges), I would still recommend supplementing with Vit D with K2 until your levels rise to between 50 and 80 ng/ml.
- Hormones: Estrogen drives up histamine which can increase inflammation and cause an eczema flare. There are many women who experience what we call estrogen dominance just before their periods which is why there’s often a flare during this time of the cycle. What to do? First and foremost is to try to tackle the imbalance with a clean diet, and maybe some herbs and supplements to reduce estrogen levels and increase progesterone (your calming hormone).
Putting all these steps into play may seem a bit daunting, so my suggestion is to start with three things: cleaning up your diet (eliminating dairy for a while is a must), getting plenty of sleep, and try using the MegasporeBiotic both internally and externally. Since the Megaspore is resistant to stomach acid (most probiotics are not) you can open the capsule for our lil’ folks and sprinkle half on some food or in a drink and it’s safe to use topically on children as well.
Now, everyone will be slightly different in their needs. There’s never a one-size-fits-all solution but the steps I’ve listed here have made a huge difference for many of my clients. And I hope they’ll be helpful to you too. If you’d like some additional guidance, please schedule a 15 minute appointment so we can get acquainted.
If you’d like to purchase what I specifically recommend for my eczema clients click here to be taken to my online dispensary. You’ll receive a 10% discount on thousands of high quality supplements found on this platform.
One last tip! I found Jennifer Fugo’s podcast, the Healthy Skin Show about 4 months ago and if you have any skin issues, her show is a must! A ton of really good information can be found here.
In Health and Love,
Cindy D
The intent of any nutritional, lifestyle or supplemental recommendation you see listed here is to support the physiological and biochemical processes of the human body, and not to diagnose, treat, cure, prevent any disease or condition.